While Echo allows you to simply speak your commands, you will need to use the Alexa Voice Remote with your Fire TV. Hold down the microphone icon on the Alexa Voice Remote and ask for the song, album, artist, or other item you want to hear. You can also use the Alexa app directly.Now you can take Apple Music for a spin through Alexa. Make requests for single tracks, entire albums, specific artists, and even radio station. Here are a few examples:Alexa, play jazz on Apple MusicAlexa, play Rubber Soul by the Beatles from Apple MusicAlexa, play the soundtrack to Star Wars from Apple MusicAlexa, play Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 from Apple MusicAlexa, play Abbott &amp; Costello's &lsquo;Who's on First' from Apple Music.Alexa, play Beats 1 from Apple MusicAlexa, play the Pure Pop station from Apple MusicAlexa, play the Spa station from Apple MusicAlexa, play Bloomberg Radio from Apple Music."The Alexa Voice Remote allows you to control Apple Music through voice commands or by pressing the physical buttons. Hold down the microphone icon and you can say "Pause," "Play," "Next song," "Previous song," and "Stop music." Alternatively, press the buttons on the remote to control playback.Reminder: You can omit saying "Apple Music" for each request if you set it as your default music service. Since you press a button on the Alexa Voice Remote, you also don't need to say "Alexa" when interacting with a Fire TV device.

Amazon on Wednesday announced that anyone who creates their own skill using its handy Alexa Skill Blueprints can now publish it to the US Alexa Skills Store for other smart speaker owners to use and review. Previously, these skills could only be used personally or by select family and friends.

Alexa Skill Blueprints, introduced last April, are designed to let anyone easily create customized Alexa skills "within minutes just by filling in the blanks"—no coding experience necessary. Amazon initially launched the feature with more than 20 templates for creating personalized children's stories, custom games for birthday and bachelorette parties, lists of jokes and inspirational quotes, skills offering information for houseguests and pet sitters, and more. There are now more than 50 Skill Blueprints available, including four news ones Amazon launched this week (more on them below).

To share your skill to the Alexa Skills Store, click the link that says "skills you've made" at the top of the Skill Blueprints page, find the one you want to publish, and select "details." From there, you can share it with specific people or submit it to Amazon to be published in the store. Before you submit your skill for publishing, you'll need to choose a good opening phrase and name for it. Once Amazon approves it, people will be able to access your skill by saying that opening phrase.

For more on the process, check out the video below.

The new Skill Blueprints Amazon launched this week are specifically designed for content creators, bloggers, universities, and organizations. News agencies, local sports teams, and other content creators can use a new Flash Briefing blueprint to publish and share their latest work. That way, Alexa users can add your content into their Flash Briefing, so they'll hear it alongside other selected news.

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Meanwhile, WordPress bloggers can share their posts in audio form with a new Blog blueprint, higher education institutions can use a new University blueprint to make their live and recorded audio content accessible on Alexa-enabled devices, and religious organizations can do the same with a new Spiritual Talks blueprint.

Amazon said there are already more than 80,000 skills available in the Alexa Skills Store. Now that "anyone can create and publish an Alexa skill in minutes, with no coding required," that number is sure to grow.

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About Angela Moscaritolo

Angela is PCMag's smart home and wearable device analyst. She previously spent eight years as a PCMag reporter, and prior to that was a reporter for SC Magazine, covering hackers and computer security. She has also written for several newspapers, including The Northern Valley Suburbanite in New Jersey, The Dominion Post in West Virginia, and the Uniontown-Herald Standard in Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of West Virginia University's Perely Isaac Reed School of Journalism.

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